


pain wasn't the heart of us

by sandyk



Series: worth it [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peter Parker, Gen, Injury, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Poison, handwavey alien poison and medicine to treat, mention of Peter Parker/Liz Allan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25284127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Peter almost dies, it's really uncomfortable. Also, totally freaks out his dad, Tony Stark.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: worth it [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750705
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	pain wasn't the heart of us

**Author's Note:**

> For the hurt/comfort bingo spot heart attack. Title from Lilly Hiatt's Rae. Thank you thank you A!!
> 
> It's definitely helpful to read the previous stories, but not required.

Peter has a horrifying headache that's been building all day. It's been a really long time, like, since he'd just been bit that he's had this level of pain. He thinks it's a migraine because he's also nauseous. No fun Monday, he thinks. He's being an idiot going to his afternoon classes at Columbia. He sits down at his seat in his advanced math class and regrets it. He should just go home. His heart starts racing. That's not a migraine. 

He should get his tablet out of his bag. Or he should stand up. His chest hurts. 

He taps his watch, taps the face, panic panic panic. He can feel his heart beating hard and fast in his chest, and he stupidly tries to stand up. He falls out of his chair and he's twitching, no, he's seizing. That's embarrassing. 

Peter wakes up, surprisingly. Tony is sitting there, watching him. Holding his hand. That's nice. His heart still hurts, that's weird. Peter tends to ache in a specific manner in his recovery, it's never been his heart. His breath feels labored. Labored is the word for that. He's learned all sorts of things trying to describe his dad's symptoms over the years. 

"Hey," Peter says.

"Yo," Tony says.

"Dad, that's embarrassing," Peter says. "My chest hurts. That's not genetic, right?"

"You got jokes," Tony says. "Yours is different. You were poisoned. Your heart stopped a few times. It was fun. I think me and May are going to be holding on to that one. Commemorate with an ornament."

"Unlike May," Peter says, closing his eyes. "I would already have more than one of those ornaments because of you."

Tony squeezes his hand. "Pepper said that, too. I think she's probably had it worse than either of us."

"I win the tragedy Olympics, we already decided that," Peter says. "But I guess you had a chance there. What kind of poison?"

"Alien poison, something Chitauri mixed with something more chemical. I can get you the formula; Cho and I had to work out every molecule for counteragents," Tony says. He's clearly trying very hard not to be as scared as he is. That sucks. But part of Peter is like, now he knows. His heart still hurts, not metaphorically. 

"Didn't you ask Shuri?" Peter rubs his chest like he can massage away pain from his heart beating.

"She was unavailable. We were rushing, as you might imagine," Tony says. "She's looked at your records now, we'll see what she can do for alien poison aftereffects. Once she and Cho get on the phone…" Tony shakes a head and nearly smiles. "Sometimes it's over my head, those two are really smart."

Peter says, "Who poisoned me?"

"Not sure yet," Tony says. "Probably more because of me than someone who figured out your Spider fetish."

"It's not a fetish," Peter says. "Doesn't weird alien engineered poison imply that someone knew regular poison wouldn't work on me?"

"Maybe," Tony says. "Maybe they just really really hate you. Or me. Probably me."

"Sorry," Peter says. He's really gotten used to the super fast healing. He closes his eyes, thinking for just a minute about his head on the cold step in his class and how he was embarrassed. He breathes in. He tries not to do compare and contrast. But he was more scared on the subway when he got bit. Everyone else was screaming, the sound fading as they just died. Worst pain Peter had ever felt in his life. To date. Still winning. Pain Olympics, Peter thinks. He wonders what his dad would say was his worst. Peter actually doesn't want to know. 

"Remind me what you did Sunday," Tony says. 

"Are you sure it wasn't Monday?"

"Maybe it was," Tony says. "Can you just, can you just answer me?"

"Sunday sucked," Peter says. "Went over to Liz's, got, you know, we broke up." Peter opens his eyes and watches his dad making notes on his tablet. No way it's notes from something Peter is saying. 

Tony says, "Ooh, do you think May and I don't talk?"

Peter frowns. He makes a fist, his fingers stiff. He says, "Fine, she dumped me. Then we didn't watch a movie and I went home early and I'm sure May told you the minute I left the room."

"Because we love you," Tony says. His gaze was steady. "She wanted me to know you were in pain. I know it's irritating."

"So irritating," Peter says. He flexes his fingers this time and none of the stiffness is diminishing. "When do I get better? Can Shuri fix this?"

"You are getting better," Tony says. He takes Peter's left hand. "You're a lot better than nearly dead and unconscious. Give it some time for once."

"Then I went to bed and went to school in the morning," Peter says. "I'm really tired all of a sudden."

"Recovering," Tony says. "Go to sleep."

"What did you tell school?" 

Tony says, "That you got poisoned. But you're getting better."

Peter drifts away. 

He drifts back in and they feed him solid foods. Incredibly bland and super mushy food, but at least there's that. They even let him use the bathroom, though Chuckie the nurse has to walk him to it and back. Chuckie's been working the medbay for a long time, at least a few years. Peter genuinely wonders how many superheroes Chuckie's helped to the bathroom. His name is actually Chuckie, too, like, why keep that nickname after you turn forty? Wacky, Peter thinks. 

He knows the head fuzziness, it's the repetitive ache coming from his chest that's new. Also the fatigue and not feeling better in two, three days. He's healing like his dad, like a non-bitten-by-radioactive-spiders-wielded-by-terrorists person. He's losing his touch with the average person if healing makes him resentful. Peter gets back in bed and takes out his phone, which Dad conveniently left by his bedside. 

He calls May. She says, "I love you, kid, that was so scary. I was so scared."

"Sorry," Peter says. 

"Don't be sorry, it's not your fault. I just wanted to know, you're important to me," May says. Then they talk about missing school again and maybe there's time to drop his biology course at Columbia. He's not going to do that. Not his biology course.

It's school time, so he texts Ned and MJ. His last text to Ned is from Monday afternoon, he was complaining about his headache and being dumped. It's not like Liz gave him a very good reason. Or any reason. 

He tried saying/texting that to MJ and she texted back that not wanting to go out with someone is a perfectly good reason. His last text from MJ is "you don't get to judge." With emojis. It's very eloquent. 

He falls asleep again, and wakes up when Helen is talking to Shuri about him. Helen holds some kind of scanner right over his heart, he can see it as Shuri looks at it. "Huh," Peter says. Helen starts talking and walks away. Peter doesn't get all the words, he guesses he needs more than freshman level college biology. "Hi, Shuri," Peter mumbles. 

When he wakes up again, he has texts from Ned and MJ. A ton, from each of them. Peter's pretty hot gossip apparently, between being dumped and getting poisoned. MJ doesn't mention that part, she just wants to make sure he'll be better for decathlon. She also sends a few playlist links and when he goes through to Spotify, it's clear she spent serious time constructing them for him. 

Ned is cautiously interested in the alien aspect of the poison. 

Tony is back by dinner time. He even brings more mush for Peter. "Can I add, like, anything? This is so bland," Peter says.

"Nope, specially made for your poor damaged organs," Tony says. "Your heart, your stomach, your kidneys, all of that."

"Organs we eat when they come from animals, is that the category?" Peter takes another labored breath. That's scary to hear. 

Tony just stares while Peter stares back. At least Peter can still win one contest. He doesn't, though, because he's so tired. 

Tony says, "About Liz."

"What?" Peter lies back in the bed. "I love her, loved her. She's, she was important to me."

"I get it, first love. First heartbreak, all that."

"Are you punning on my pain?" Peter sighs. "I know it was only six weeks - "

"That was unintentional, excuse me, and I wasn't judging you on the length of your romance," Tony says. Even with his eyes closed, Peter can tell Tony is worrying about something. Tony says, "So Liz. Didn't you say her dad hated you?"

"I'm pretty sure he didn't stop because she dumped me," Peter says. "Yeah, because he hates you."

"So he hates Peter, son of Stark, not Peter in the suit jumping around?"

"More swinging than jumping, but yeah. I think so. I don't think Liz's dad knows I'm Spider-man."

Tony says, "You don't think?"

"I don't, when we were up against, when we've gone up against that weapons dealer guy, I've gotten a vibe. Like maybe he's familiar? And I get a vibe from Liz's dad. I don't know. I don't know. We don't have a great voice modifier on the suit, you know," Peter says. He takes a few shallow breaths and feels like he ran a marathon. He hates being this weak. Being weak sucks ass, he's too used to being Spider-man. 

Tony says, "Could be, though, we'll see. Lots of people hate me, though."

"Don't kill Liz's dad," Peter says. "If it's him, I mean. Whenever you get the bad guy, if it's Liz's dad, don't kill him."

"We'll see," Tony says. "I don't care whose dad this guy is, try to kill my kid? I'm not promising you."

"Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," Peter says. He's suddenly exhausted. "Can we debate this later?"

Tony kisses Peter's forehead right before Peter falls back asleep. 

The next time Peter wakes up, he has May sitting next to him. He's so happy to see her. She says, "Don't do that again, Peter."

"I'll try," Peter says. "Can we move on to something else?"

"Probably not," May says. "But you sound like hell, so fine."

May puts on a classic baseball game and Peter falls asleep while the Mets lose, again. 

His chest aches constantly. It barely lessens by the end of the week. He can't be Spider-man like this, and he feels so weak and useless. One time he wakes up and Steve is sitting next to him. Steve says, "I understand this is hard."

Peter rolls his eyes. "Thanks."

"I remember being that little guy," Steve says. "I tell myself I do. But I can't picture being weak again."

"It sucks ass, man," Peter says. 

"I figured," Steve says. 

"Thanks for coming to sympathize," Peter says.

Steve smiles and pats Peter's arm. It's so annoying having him as a pseudo uncle. 

Even though he's a creaky, weak, aching almost ordinary teen, he convinces Dad and May to let him go back to school. He can't keep missing school. 

Since the story is the actual truth, everyone knows Peter got poisoned, everybody at school is very nice to him. Peter's been considering dropping out of his math class, so he skips it Monday. He does go back to his bio class. Happy picks him up at campus, says, "You're going back to the medbay, your watch says your heart is still messed up, kid."

"I know, I know," Peter says. He falls asleep in the back seat and when he wakes up he's in the Medbay. He wonders who carried him back up here. Any answer is too gross to contemplate. 

Tony is tucking his plush porg under his arms. "I don't need this," Peter says. He hugs it anyway. "I'm fifteen, come on."

"I don't notice you throwing it on the floor," Tony says. "Come on, that little alien bird is adorable."

"Dad, it's not real," Peter says. "You understand movies versus real life, right? There are no Jedis. I think Thor would have told us, right?"

"Who knows," Tony says. He sounds really resigned. "You sure you want to drop out of your math class?"

"Probably," Peter says. "I've got enough things that make my skin crawl, I don't need one more every Monday and Wednesday." 

"Enough things?" Now he's getting the patented Dad glare. 

"You know what I mean," Peter says. He hugs his porg, Porgy Pig, and turns on his side. "Wake me up early enough that I can do my homework. Oh, oh, wait, did I read correctly that Spider-man was out last week? And recently?"

Tony smiles. "Clever, huh? It was Vision. In your suit. Throw a little confusion out there for anyone who might think Peter Parker is Spider-man."

"Vision is taller than me," Peter says.

"He can change his height," Tony says. "He likes the webshooters, by the way."

"Oh, great." Peter sighs.

He wakes up in the middle of the night with Shuri leaning over him. She says, "I've been analyzing that poison and how it's affecting you. Your spider powers are so interesting." She reaches down and makes a very small cut on his chest. 

"Ow," Peter says. 

"We both know that didn't hurt very much," Shuri says. She shoves something into his cut and he gasps. He feels it absorb into his skin and blood. 

"What is that?"

"Something I think will help you," Shuri says. "Go back to sleep. We'll see how you are when you wake up."

"Okay, okay."

"Your little squeeze toy is very cute," she says.

"His name's Porgy Pig," Peter mumbles.

"That's funny," Shuri says, smirking.

When Peter wakes up, he hurts less. Damn Shuri, he thinks. Peter blinks and says, "Hey, everybody. I feel better. Anyone want to check on that?"

Shuri says, over what could be called an intercom, "We know, Porgy. We have multiple systems monitoring you. Go eat breakfast, go to school. We'll clear for you being a superhero when you get home from school."

"Peter, Porgy is the stuffed animal." Peter waves it in the air. 

School is much much better when he's not aching with every step. So he finally notices Liz is moping around. She lets Cindy run all the decathlon meetings and doesn't even show up. It's so weird. He doesn't think he would have that effect on her. He's sure she cares about him, he knows it for sure, but he just doesn't think she's so heartbroken she's avoiding even being in the same room with him. MJ looks at him looking and says, "You're right, it doesn't make sense for her to be this bummed. She dumped you. Plus, unlike you, she can have any guy she wants."

"I could have a lot of guys," Peter says. 

"Liz could have any guy or girl," MJ says. 

Peter nods. Ned nods. Ned says, "You could probably snag more guys. I mean, I'm the boyfriend of Tony Stark's son is probably a better story to sell."

MJ nods.

Peter says, "I hope I don't end up dating anyone who would do that."

MJ says, "Liz would never."

Peter nods. 

Ned says, "Are you really dropping out of your grad school math?"

"I'm pretty sure I traumatized the professor and all the students, so."

MJ says, "Don't you mean you're traumatized? Another one on the pile for you, huh?"

"I'm fine," Peter says.

Now that Peter doesn't have to hit the medbay after every day at school, he goes back to his schedule and heads home to May. He waits a day, though, before putting his suit back on. But he just takes a deep breath and goes out the window. 

He does a few unnecessary flips. He might show off a little. He saves a few people, feels good about that. Goes back to the apartment still pretty buzzing and popping. 

It's almost like things are back to normal, almost like he was never sick and didn't die once or twice. He can admit he checked. His heart stopped for over a minute three times. No wonder Dad and May are freaked out. He's glad he has absolutely no memory of that. He's been close enough to his dad almost dying enough times. Or getting the phone call to say he's not dead or he's about to die. So Peter can imagine what it's like on the other side. It's more unnerving and worrying on the side of the stopped heart. That's not how his dad has reacted, but Peter is young. He's super loved, he's never doubted once in his life, so again, way ahead of his dad. 

The next night he spends at the Tower, he wanders down to the lab and sees a picture of his grandfather with Steve. "Fuck you, Grandpa," Peter mutters. 

"Is that directed at Steve or Howard?" That's Natasha's voice. 

"My actual grandfather," Peter says. "Where's Dad?"

"Someone's meeting with him," Nat says. He turns around and Nat leans against the closed door. 

Peter looks at Natasha's relaxed fingers. "You're not telling me, huh?"

She shrugs. 

Peter figures it out anyway. "It's Liz, right? She came to see him. Not me."

"I think possibly she knows Tony is Iron Man and doesn't know you are Spider-man."

Peter sits down at one of the benches. DUM-E comes over and beeps at him. Stupid surprisingly empathetic robot. Peter taps it like he's scratching its head. "I can't believe Liz's dad tried to kill me."

"I can't believe Liz's dad has spent so long selling those weapons without us noticing," Nat says. She almost sounds bitter. 

"Please tell Dad not to kill Liz's dad," Peter says. "I'm going to my room now."

Peter wakes up at 3 am because Tony is looming over him. He looks angry, but Peter knows it's not him for once. "Did you kill him?"

"No, we didn't. Even though he tried to kill you and he's killed a bunch of people who are somebody's kid," Tony says.

"Everybody's someone's kid," Peter says. "But thank you."

"You know, Rhodey was the one we really had to hold back," Tony says. "He really loves you, I guess."

"You love me, too. You did what I asked," Peter says.

Tony sits down on the bed, his back to Peter. He says, "Liz asked, too. And she'd just told me her dad was an awful man. Shitty dads, I tell you what."

"Well, you'd have to tell me. I don't know what's that like," Peter says. 

Tony turns, reaching for Peter's head. "Aren't you being nice to me tonight?"

"I love you, too. Can I sleep now?" 

Tony kisses Peter's forehead before Peter falls asleep. 

Liz is gone from school. Peter gets Pepper to leak that Liz had helped the Avengers, because he really doesn't want anyone to blame her. One afternoon, MJ is on his bed, reading a book. Ned is sprawled on one of his beanbags. MJ says, "You're the real hero, Peter. You had your stepmother leak something to the press."

"I tried," Peter whines. "I know she's braver than me."

Ned says, "I can't believe you dropped out of your math class. It sounded really interesting."

"I can take it next semester, Ned. It's fine. I bet the class appreciates it." Peter says. 

MJ snorts and Peter ignores her. Everything's fine now. It's all good. Nothing wrong with Peter.


End file.
